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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Ecological Effects Of Virus-Resistant Transgenic Squash, Holly R. Prendeville
Ecological Effects Of Virus-Resistant Transgenic Squash, Holly R. Prendeville
School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
Two ecological risks associated with the use of transgenic crops include the effects of transgene products on non-target organisms and the effects of a transgene after it moves from crops into a wild plant population. In work presented here, we specifically investigate the ecological risks of virus-resistant transgenic squash. We observed pollinator behavior to determine if pollinators are affected by nontarget effects of the virus-resistant transgene. We found that pollinator behavior did differ between conventional and virus-resistant transgenic squash due to pleiotropic effects of the transgene. This difference in pollinator behavior can affect plant mating patterns, thereby affecting crop-wild hybridization …
Time, Temperature And Species Interactions In A Duckweed-Herbivore Mesocosm, Ian Waterman
Time, Temperature And Species Interactions In A Duckweed-Herbivore Mesocosm, Ian Waterman
School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
Species interactions within a community are impacted by a variety of abiotic factors. Temperature is known to alter population dynamics such that direct and indirect interactions between populations within a community are affected. Here I investigate the effect of temperature change on species interactions within a duckweed-herbivore mesocosm. Multiple communities were constructed, from a single population of duckweed, to two populations of duckweed consumed by aphids. In the one-predator two-prey web we predicted mutually positive indirect effects between duckweed populations during the first generation of growth. As aphid populations respond numerically to more abundant prey, mutually negative and asymmetric indirect …